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Land-Based Alternatives 
- in accordance with both the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and 
Atmosphere’s (NACOA) 1981 recommendations and the recently issued 
federal district court decision (80 Civ. 1677), the City agrees that 
municipal sewage sludge should be disposed of in the manner and medium 
that minimizes the risk to human health and the environment within 
obvious financial limitations. 
- Numerous negative impacts would be expected to result from each of 
the feasible land-based alternatives that have been identified for the 
ocean disposal of sewage sludge. Because of the very large quantities 
of sludge generated in the New York metropolitan area, these land- 
based options are high technology, high cost alternatives, which are, 
in general, unacceptable to the general public. Furthermore, these 
options have not been shown to reduce the risks to human health rela- 
tive to the well-studied effects of ocean dumping. 
- Thermal reduction techniques are categorized as either incineration or 
pyrolysis. Both have numerous, documented social and environmental 
problems including increased air emissions violations in areas where 
air quality is already substandard, the generation of contaminated 
ash, the release of carcinogenic and mutagenic compounds in close 
proximity to large population centers, high costs of construction and 
operation, and the eventual recycling of these atmospheric emissions 
back into the Atlantic Ocean. 
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